This August, eighty Adventist theologians and scientists will gather to discuss creation. The fact that they are meeting at all implies that the cosmos of God can be comprehended with theological and scientific knowledge. Such thinking represents an invasion of worldly rationalism and dogmatism on the part of both extremes in Adventist theology.

Actually, we have failed to understand the cosmology of the Bible. We cannot comprehend the beginnings or ends of God’s creation. By following an obsession to know things we cannot know, we are being sidetracked from the most important element of our message.

Our time would be better served elevating the moral declarations of Sinai than assuming we can understand the infinite knowledge and limitless perspective of God. A review of creation as explained in the Bible shows that humans have much to learn that they cannot see. According to Ellen White, "worlds" look upon us.1 These "worlds" are beyond the scope of our science, theology, and imaginations, as shown throughout the Bible.

Consider, for example, Genesis 1:2: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was without form and void."2 This verse tells us that substance did not exist before creation. It did not incorporate preexisting matter. Nothing was there, only a void. We cannot observe that condition, nor can we understand its meaning since we are constrained at present to matter as we currently experience it.

Likewise, the element of time in the creation week remains a mystery. According to Ellen White, "The Bible recognizes no long ages in which the earth was slowly evolved from chaos."3 We follow a "type" in our twenty-four-hour days, as directed by God, but what was in the beginning is not what we experience now. Genesis roots the days of creation before time as we currently know it. What we know is a consequence of the fall, and, according to Revelation 10:6, it will eventually end.

The days of God are not the same as those of humans, as indicated in the books of Daniel and Revelation. The creation days occurred within divine time. This does not constrain the Sabbath; it expands its sanctity. The events of Genesis 1 happened in a different "sacred" reality, a different dimension that humans cannot currently understand except in the pattern given by God.

Elsewhere in the Bible we find evidence of other dimensions about which we know little or nothing, mysterious systems that we cannot currently explain. In the Gospels, for instance, we catch glimpses of a world inhabited by fallen spirits. "My name is Legion, for we are many," asserted the demons that Jesus cast into the swine (Mark 5:9). Similarly, Paul warned about "spiritual wickedness in high places" (Eph. 6:12) and Solomon saw God transcending all earthly dimensions (1 Kings 8:27).

According to the Bible, the reality we currently experience will eventually give way. Then we may gain knowledge about the divine dimension, the one that existed at the creation. "And all the host of heaven will be dissolved, and the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll," asserts Isaiah 34:4. We read in Revelation 6:14 that "the heaven departed as a scroll when . . . rolled together." 2 Peter 3:10-12 tells us that our present reality will one day burn away.

In John 14:2, Christ tells his disciples, "In my Father’s house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you." In that verse Christ made a statement of cosmological significance that encompassed not only the future, but also the past and present. God’s "house" includes many dimensions, including one that existed at the creation, whose endings we cannot know and about which we can only marvel in amazement.

The universe we currently experience is a closed envelope, a controlled environment of limited scope prevented from infecting infinity with its chaos. What we view with telescopes and test with instruments are single grains of sand on a limitless shore. We cannot at present properly conceive the vastness of God’s creation, its beginning, or its ends.

The meeting on creation scheduled to take place in August will consist of finite humans who do not know—nor can they know—the tapestry of God’s infinity. Theologies have caused us to stone the prophets. Modern science has raised more questions than it has answered. Neither can look beyond the vale. The basis of such a conference is presumptuous.

How can God be pleased with such pride?

Notes and References

1. Ellen G. White, Patriarchs and Prophets (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald, 1958), 42, 43.
2. All scriptural references are taken from the King James Version.
3. White, Patriarchs and Prophets, 112.

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